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The irony of cricket
Posted by Austin on 3 August 2010 - 1:18am.
Yesterday New Zealander Eric Tindill died at the age of 99 - a few months short of his 100th birthday. He was an All Black and a test cricketer. I heard this morning that no test cricketer has ever reached the age of 100.
Isn't that ironic? Don't you think?
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Dork moment
Yes.
But Tindall's story is just that little more unique. He is - and will probably remain - the only man to be capped at two sports, as well as referee and umpire at the international level.
Andy Goram
43 caps in goal (football) + played 4 times for the national cricket team (both for Scotland). Never a ref or umpire though.
Denis Compton
Played cricket for England and represented the country in unofficial football matches during WW2. He never won an official football cap though...
C B Fry
Captained England at cricket, held the world long jump record, played for Southampton in an FA Cup Final, played for the Barbarians, was an MP, a Captain in the Royal Navy and (so he claimed) was offered the throne of Albania in 1920.
Jack of all trades I say...
He also founded and edited a magazine named 'CB Fry's Magazine' :-)
A fascinating man..
Isn't he regarded as the finest all-round sportsman ever? I read recently that his party-piece was to stand with his back to a fireplace and then do a standing jump to land on the mantlepiece.
He was a bit of a self-publicist though
which, of course, was seen as a bit infra dig at the time.
(Just leafing through the book* and I am reminded that he was also India's delegate to the League Of Nations)
* CB Fry: King Of Sport http://www.amazon.co.uk/C-B-Fry-King-Sport-Iain-Wilton/dp/1843580306/ref...
Er...
...what's ironic about this?
Well...
Situational irony is the disparity of intention and result: when the result of an action is contrary to the desired or expected effect.
With cricketers, I reckon we would all love to see one make it to 100, since cricket is a game loved primarily by stat fans, and we would expect there to have been at least one "Don Bradman makes his Most Important Century of all" type headline, regarding a test cricketer.
Therefore, I think there is a little irony in the fact that this has not yet happened. It will happen, of course, and I look forward to the punsome headlines on the back pages at that time!
Bet he's glad
he wasn't a professional pontoon player
Really?
That surely can't be true about no Test player getting to one hundred years old....can it?
Amazing stat if it is.
Centurians
According to Cricinfo, it's true. But I don't know whether it's statistically unusual.
Jeff Wilson
Achieved the same for New Zealand - rugby and cricket. I shall keep a beady eye out to see if he makes his century.
Just as ...
...I don't understand Austin's idea of irony, I'm puzzled by ranger's astonishment.
In order to have lived to 100, a player would have to have been born before 1910, so he would almost certainly have made his debut before the Second World War, and by that time 706 players had played Test cricket. If you allow for a couple of world wars to take their toll of fit young men, is it surprising that none of that small population reached 100?
Cricketers
where from a more more privilleged background (the *gentlemen" were anyway) so could be expected to live long due better diets, health care etc but it is only recently that reaching 100 was a common occurence see the story last year about the lady complaining about getting the same card from the Queen each year.
Unfortunately...
...some of them don't make it due to their own hand. Being a first-class cricketer is one of the professions most prone to suicide. There's even a book about it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/apr/22/sport.ameliahill
THE Richie B?
... as in 'Good morning Everybody and welcome to Edgbaston'?
Morning everyone
No.
But which jacket?
The faun, the taupe, the camel, the beige, the light brown, the sand..
This makes me think of Peter Tinniswood
His deluded character the Brigadier was mildly obsessed with Benaud (TInniswood plainly loved the man in reality) - in one of the Brigadier books he describes Benaud as having a mouth like a hamster's arsehole
Clarifying this!
So it's no New Zealand Test player that has reached a hundred years rather than no Test player?
If so, that makes it less surprising.
No
It's all test players. See http://www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/434766.html
no it's all Test players
and Lenny, today it's the Ecru.
It's very rare...
...indeed for a man to reach the age of 100. According to the Office of National Statistics there were 9300 centenarians in England and Wales in 2007, and there were seven women to every man.
If you were to take any random group of just over 1000 men, how likely is it that any of them would have played Test cricket?
Sadly...
...the Japanese don't play cricket. Tonight's news included the startling statistic that there are over 30,000 centenarians in Japan.
On the other hand, the reason this was newsworthy was that Tokyo's oldest man turned out to have been dead for three decades, while his family quietly continued trousering his pension. So that figure might be subject to review.
Review system
Nice to see the review system working. Fans of Japanese death statistics have been calling for the use of technology for years.
This story about the 100-year-old
had a good deadpan line in it:
Yes quite right
When I first heard the statistic, I thought it was remarkable - but when you consider the rarity of a man reaching 100 years of age at all, and then overlapping that with how few men become test cricketers, then you're right Inky, it's not as surprising as it may first appear.
What is really odd...
...is that, as far as I know, (and I'm open to correction) no one born in Liverpool has ever played Test cricket.
Correction
From http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/qa-liverpool-off-the-ball-1538627.htm...
Thanks...
Thanks, Fraser. (Incidentally, Cranston died in 2007.)
That's a good one
I thought of David Sheppard, who was Bishop of Liverpool but it turns out he was born in Reigate.
Despite the statistical truths, I do maintain that there is mild irony at work here. Test batsmen centre their careers on scoring centuries as many times as possible, yet the ultimate ton-up is always beyond them.
The real irony
Is that the average age of MCC members is 104.
Michael Clarke
the current Aussie vice-captain was born in Liverpool.
Liverpool, New South Wales, but still Liverpool.
Let's give our favourite cricketers some support...
...in the old longevity stakes.
The ultimate ton-up has got to happen one day, surely? I say, come on Geoff Boycott!, come on Sir Richard Hadlee! Come on Sir Garfield Sobers! Come on Allan Border! Come on Faroukh Engineer! One of them's got to make it, surely?
Richie Benaud...
...80 in October and fit as a fiddle.
Boycott..
.. will probably run out a few of the others
.....
....and it will probably seem like he's been around for 200 years by the time he gets there.
I wonder...
...who the oldest great cricketer is. Everton Weekes is 85. Anyone know of anyone of comparable stature who's older?
(England's oldest Test player is Reg Simpson, incidentally, who's 90.)
Trevor Bailey is 86
Cricinfo, as usual, as all the data you need.
Fraser, you are a mine of info...
...and here is one of my favourite quotes from the great Trevor, which shows the wit and cameraderie that existed in the TMS box...
Then there was Trevor Bailey living up to his defensive nature when Kapil Dev had hit Eddie Hemmings for three successive sixes and needed one more off the last ball of the over to avoid the follow on.
"I'd push a single," he said, to commentary box laughter and a chorus of "You would!" (Kapil chose the bolder option and hit a fourth six.)
Lovely Stuff.
Thanks again, Fraser
I see Andy Ganteaume is seventh on that list at 89. It would be fitting if the man who made a century in his only Test innings were to be the first to reach 100.
(Trevor Bailey was a fine cricketer, and so was Arthur Morris, who is 88, but Everton Weekes was a great one.)